Various oil and gas production operations use ball valves. Often packers are used in conjunction with ball valves. The packer closes off the annulus between the tubing string and the well bore or casing. The ball valve can selectively close off the central flow passage of the tubing string such that flow is or is not allowed through the passageway depending on the setting of the ball valve.
The ball valves of the prior art generally disclose use of a spherical ball-valve element, which in a closed valve position has seals, which seal or close off the central flow passageway of the tubing string so that the valve element will seal against pressure in one or both directions. Typically, rotation of the tubing string is used to operate the valve element to move it between open and closed positions. However, rotation is also used to operate other down-hole tools that can be used in conjunction with the ball valve; thus, requiring sequential rotative operations without a positive indication that the valve is fully closed. In addition, in highly deviated well bores, it can be difficult to achieve rotation to set, unset, open or close down-hole tools.